“Once you get the opportunity to win a Super Bowl, have that confetti fall on you, hold that trophy and have that parade, you kinda get like greedy,” Eagles running back Saquon Barkley told Kay Adams during an interview at Jefferson Health Training Complex on Aug. 7. “I just want to feel that again and I don’t care how it happens.”
Those words described Barkley’s entire approach to life during a 20-minute chat with the popular football pundit on Friday afternoon’s Up and Adams Show at One Eagles Way for Philadelphia Eagles Training Camp.
The Eagles running back chatted about a wide range of topics, including the Super Bowl standard for the organization, his electric backward leap against Jacksonville last season, and what’s next on the gridiron bucket list for the star from Whitehall, Pennsylvania.
Adams questioned Barkley on how an 11-win campaign and back-to-back NFC East Division titles weren’t enough to be satisfied. “Have you ever been to Philly?” he responded with a mischievous smile. “That is not good enough. It’s the standard that they have for this organization, and I think the players match that. We have the same standard... We want to put on for them, and we want to win. We want to live up to that standard. We all want to feel that confetti fall on our faces again.”
To accomplish that goal, Barkley understands he needs those around him to be great, a message he wanted to share with the entire world. “I’m not who I am without a great team,” he said. “Just knowing it takes a team, it takes a family, it takes a village for you to get to where you want to get to. That’s not only in football… (it’s) whatever you want to be. That’s the biggest message I want (to share) to the people who follow me is that I truly believe and I’m bought into the mindset of what having a great team can do for your career and your life.”
Philadelphia has a spectacular 25-9 record in the Saquon Barkley era of Eagles football. He has collected 3,145 yards over two seasons, which already places him 13th on the franchise’s all-time rushing leaderboard.
Barkley is currently chasing down a pair of quarterbacks, Donovan McNabb (3,249 yards) and starter Jalen Hurts (3,554), before vaulting inside the Eagles' top 10 all-time list. He needs only 650 yards to hurdle into seventh place in franchise history past icons like Miles Sanders (3,708) and Ricky Watters (3,795).
A 14-yard gain against the Jacksonville Jaguars in Nov. 2024 became immortalized on the cover of EA Sports Madden 26 last summer. In his first season in Kelly Green, Barkley was playing real-world contests on arcade mode as he dashed for 2,005 yards, including one mind-bending 3rd-and-6 conversion. He received a swing pass at midfield, juked a pair of defenders to earn a first down before leaping backward over defender Jarrion Jones, landing on his feet, and being promptly smashed into the 30-yard line on the green turf at Lincoln Financial Field.
“I realized I did something pretty cool,” Barkley said about the game-altering play now featured in a videogame. “I also took a big shot during the play. My back locked up. It didn’t really all make sense to me until after the game when I got to see it on my phone.”
Head Coach Nick Sirianni arrived for his interview with Adams wearing a black T-shirt featuring the iconic 2025 ESPY-winning play against Jacksonville. However, Barkley doesn’t want to be remembered just for that super-human athletic display.
He tells kids he got “lucky” to pull off the maneuver, but he hopes his career won’t be defined by a play that has never occurred in pro football before. “I don’t just want to just be remembered for doing a pretty cool play,” Barkley stated. “I want to be known as a great running back. I want to be mentioned with Derrick Henry, Marshall Faulk, LT (LaDainian Tomlinson), and the list goes on and on.”
Barkley said, with a sly smile, that he’s “kinda over that” leap from November 2024, and there are no plans to “one up that play”. Instead, the Birds star is intent on cementing his legacy among the best backs in NFL history.
Despite being "over" the play, Barkley busted out the move against his 4-year-old toddler during training camp earlier this week. The Eagles runner was being chased by his children post-practice before he planted his hand on top of his son’s head (Saquon Jr.) and cleared the cute defender in one quick movement.
When asked by Adams why he didn’t let his soon-to-be 4-year-old little man make the tackle, Barkley said it’s all part of the process. “I believe in teaching them young,” he said. “I’m super competitive. That’s how my older brother was with me and how my dad was with me. I’ll let him have his moments… but I don’t believe in letting anybody win. That’s not how life works.”
Barkley is 1,644 yards away from the 10,000-yard rushing benchmark in the NFL. Entering the 2026 season, only 32 athletes in league history have sailed past that barrier, including two members of the Eagles fraternity: Watters (10,009 yards) and LeSean McCoy (11,102). Barkley should become the first member of the franchise to sail past the milestone while wearing Midnight Green.
“I already knew the number,” Barkley said matter-of-factly. “One of my favorite quotes is ‘study the greats and become greater’, so I’m aware of what a lot of these guys have accomplished and where I want to get to. I want to accomplish 10 (rushing for 10K yards), I want a Hall of Fame jacket, and all of these other great things. But (I need to) make sure my process is on par for all that stuff to happen.”
The Eagles tailback is also supremely aware of his overall rating in the upcoming EA Sports Madden 27 videogame after his rating dipped despite finishing inside the top 10 in rushing last season. “I went from a 99 to a 92, so you see how quick that goes,” he joked with Adams after being last summer’s cover athlete. “I love Madden. Shoutout to Madden, (but) if I’m letting my overall in Madden motivate me, I’m in a bad spot. There’s a lot of other things that matter a little more to me.”
Adams quizzed the Eagles offensive star on why he was working as a defensive back against Eagles wide receiver Dontayvion Wicks during camp this week. “He was teaching me the game,” he said with another grin. “There’s a route that I want to be really good at this year… I will not say which one. I watched him run it, and I think he does it at a high level.”
Barkley spoke very highly of the new addition to the wide receiver room. “Tay (Wicks) is a steal,” Barkley gushed. “I don’t like speaking too high because I don’t want to put too much pressure, but this guy can handle it. I love everything that he’s about. Shoutout to Howie. I don’t know how he got him for whatever round we traded for.”
Philadelphia dealt a pair of draft selections to the Green Bay Packers to add the 6-foot-1 wideout: a 2026 fifth-round choice (originally from Atlanta) and a 2027 sixth-round lottery ticket. General Manager Howie Roseman moved quickly to sign Wicks to a one-year contract extension to keep him in Midnight Green over the next two seasons.
Barkley provided a quick scouting report which should delight Eagles fans. “He’s a violent route-runner (and) he’s violent catching the ball. But he also can put his face in there and block at a high level.” Those tools have served Wicks well over three NFL seasons with 108 catches on 180 targets for 1,328 yards and 11 touchdowns across 46 contests in Green Bay. Now, Wicks looks to become an integral piece in a loaded wideout room featuring DeVonta Smith, Makai Lemon, Hollywood Brown, Darius Cooper, Britain Covey, and others.
“I’m really excited for this offense,” Barkley said. “I’m not going to get too much into the X’s-and-O’s because I know NFL teams watch these interviews and try to pick up any little thing that they can. Sean (Mannion) and all of our coaching staff are doing a great job. Right now, we are just competing at a high level with the defense and trying to get better one day at a time.”
That’s how we get back to the Super Bowl or bust mentality in the city of Philadelphia entering the 2026 NFL season. The Eagles have won back-to-back division titles. After tasting the sweetness of victory at Super Bowl LIX, last season’s Wild Card loss to the San Francisco 49ers left Eagles fans (and players) wanting more. According to Barkley, there is one goal this season: returning to the mountaintop and feeling the green and white confetti fall from the sky at the end of Super Bowl LXI in Feb. 2027.
